I want to thank Dennis for what he said. Joe would never admit it, but he is grateful too:
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This may not be much, and not really on topic, but this comments section is here, and I’m going to use it.
This following quite means a lot to a Gen X’er (or am I a Gen Y?) like me..
>Joe and Budarick and I are not the jolly old Santa Claus types who sold out everything you young >people SHOULD have inherited from us. We are hurt and bitter and vicious about the fact that you >got
>sold out. We tried so desperately hard decade after decade to sound the alarm.
You may not be aware of the disgust and dismay I had, watching the baby boomers and their ilk, revel in what they had, get lost in pointless nostalgia, and leave for us the bill for their lifestyle. I can tell you, that some of us, those in my generation who understand, feel robbed by the ones before us and much of my politics comes as a rebellion against the baby boomers/WWII generation and counter culture ‘revolutionaries’.
But it is good to hear people like you admit this and genuinely feel bitter that your peers couldn’t leave a better future behind, it does mean a lot, a lot more than you may think, because you really are in a minority, a very, very small minority. A minority so small, I’ve yet to meet anyone in person who would even begin to THINK like that.
I certaintly have learned from that mistake, and will under no way allow myself to do anything which will give my children a more uncertain future.
Comment by Dennis
It is SO good to have one of the people I fought for acknowledge me.
When I was in my teens, I kept demanding conisederation of “future generations.” All of the peole I was talking to, from Catholic priests to liberals to Objectivists, kept explaining to me that these “future generations” didn’t matter. The priests, in which category I include the preachers the way Jefferson did, told me that Jesus only meant “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” to apply to the PRESENT generation.
I could not explain to them that none of us were in Jesus’s PRESENT generation, so there was something wrong with that argument.
That was in my teens. My teens ended in 1961. So if you were born after March 31, 1061 you are one of those mythical and completely unimportant “future generations” that no decent “Christian” gave a fig about.
At the University of Virginia, a Public Choice expert explained to us why it was absurd to be concerned about “future generations.” He said, “What is a representative of these ‘future generations’ could talk to you? What if he came back inhis ghostly garb and tried to make a DEAL with you? What could he OFFER you? NOTHING! So why would you be concerned with him?”
From Buckley to Marx, their only concern was that a Mexican NOW was real, whereas future generations — you — was something mythical.
This is something for the birds. Literally.
If a bird was logical he wouldn’t spend all that time mating and feeding chicks and defending chicks with his or her life. What does he get OUT of it? Nothing. A lot LESS than nothing.
Why should a bird spend most of tis one precious lifetime assuring that birds who look like him or her populate the earth long after he or she has ceased to exist? This is how every sociopath reasons. But in my day, thiis was not the basis of being a sociopath. This was and is the basis of being a CHRISTIAN or a conservative or a libertarian or anything else.
This is MORALITY!?
Joe could desribe this as a disagreement between me and them. He could pull out his Lexicon and find forty-two good solid synonyms for “disagreement.”
I do not regard this as a disagreement. It is a DISCONNECT. Mortality is NOT how you bargain with people. Morality first of all applies to people who CANNOT bargain with you. Above all, morality concerns the future you leave to people who are not born yet.
Dealing with people who can hurt you is not MORALITY unless you are a sociopath.
Two plus two is four.
No synonyms.
I care about future generations because I was BORN to care about future generations. I was born to care about MY future generations. A more sophisitcated person, a non-redneck, would be BEYOND such tribal basics. Everybody has told me that, and Joe is merely the latest.
Which is why the article by Rushton and Jensen was such a landmark, why Premise Checker and Elizabeth pronounced it as such. The leftists and respectable cosnervatives did not even bother to demand a lynch mob when it was published. LibAnon will tell you that the left is more than willing to accept its premise: Race is family.
Race is family is not nostalgia, it is MORALITY. That article states that a healthy person wants his own kind to survive and prosper. In fact, thought neither Rushton nor Jensen would be willing to listen to a redneck like me, they said that the race that took America would say, “We the people of the United States of America … and OUR posterity …” was the basis of all morality.
Power does not come from the barrel of a gun wielded by some black militant. Power comes from US. The only way to take power from us is to make us take any other idea seriously. Which is what Joe and George Will keep trying to do.
Before this SILLY — no apologies to Joe — generation came along, nobody but Lincoln-obsessed conservative would have taken a second to agree with this. A healthy mind would wonder why I have to belabor the obvious.
Dennis honors us, which we appreciate. But more important, he swears what he will never take this silliness-covered-by-sophistication seriously. He will be MORAL. He will listen to no preacher, no priest, no libertarian.
Joe will never admit it, but that is what the remnant of white moral beings on this planet live for. And Dennis is almost unique in not just bitching about he has been screwed, but in recognizing that there are a few of us mutations around who carried the truth on.
I don’t NEED somebody to see this. I have carried on alone. But it feels good to see that Dennis declares the truth. For every Dennis there are a hundred more who see it but don’t express it.
To me, THAT is a triumph of morality.
#1 by mderpelding on 07/17/2006 - 8:43 pm
Wow, you actually want to be at fault for our present situation?
Who made you God?
I was born into a lower class Republican family.
You know, authority is allways right.
In the upper midwest.
It took me years to overcome the crap programmed into my head.
I still am trying desperately to think for myself.
FOR A CHANGE.
What has happened to us as a people ANYWHERE is not the failings of a few “enlightened”
individuals.
You don’t have a monopoly on bitterness, or regret.
Neither do I.
So wah for me, and wah for you.
#2 by joe rorke on 07/18/2006 - 3:52 pm
OK, so you’re trying to rile me up. That’s clear. I thumped you good and proper so I guess I’ll have to give you the opportunity to throw a few blows at me. First I’m a Buckley clone and now I’m George Will II. If you believe that after all the commentary I have put out on this blog then you are not a bright man at all much less a genius. There’ll be things I won’t say on this blog. Count on it. But whatever I have ever said here couldn’t possibly qualify me as a neoconservative. And as for the dictionary. Oh, I shouldn’t read? That’s what Limbaugh tells his followers. Don’t read anything. Just listen to me. I’ll tell you all you need to know. Then he shovels the political propaganda all over his followers who stand there with eyes glazed over sucking it all up.
It’s interesting what happens to a man when you give him a severe thumping, when you dump all over his world. Actually, you exercised quite a bit of restraint, Bob. I would have expected a flying dropkick. Perhaps you’re mellowing in your advancing age. You must have been balls on toast when you were younger.
#3 by Dennis on 07/19/2006 - 9:57 am
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This reminds me of a quote….
“An oak is just an acorns way of making more acorns”
A human is just natures way of making more people.
As a man in my 20’s, I see exactly the same cycle happening again. They dont think they have a natural responsibility to rear a new generation and provide, as I have debated with them many times.
No, the marxist ideal of complete social atomism has taken its hold. Each person just ‘exists’ and ’emerges’ as an ecomonic unit. Wealth in our nations is just due to luck or exploitation.
Culture is someting that just exists, and is to be admired, rather than upholded and created. Quality of life, is to be enjoyed, not sustained and improved. There seems to be this faith, this idea that somehow a civilised society just ‘happens’, and people just appear in it, and get to enjoy the fruits. Life is to be enjoyed, for ones own benefit, free from the burden of providing for those yet to come.
Our wealth is to be given to those who dont have it. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard a white women say she would forsake having and raising her own children (seen as a chore, an unecessary cost) and adopt non-whites instead. In Holland, this seems all the rage.
No one seems to be able to draw the connection between the first world lifestyle the live in, and the generations who fought for something better, who built themselves up, to leave it behind. I would imagine there was a time, when no one would even question whether mothers should be paid to have children or not. I would imagine there was a time, where if you were said that society should compensate you for having children, you would be laughed at. I would imagine there was a time, when it was ASSUMED that you would do all for them.
I say “I would imagine”, because that is exactly what you have to do, because those generations are gone. Thats why it’s so important for people who have experienced and learned what happens as a result of this ‘morality’ to speak up and help prevent others repeating the mistake they witnessed.
#4 by Elizabeth on 07/20/2006 - 8:22 pm
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I would love to have children, but I was raised by two asses who decided, when I hit my
teens, that they weren’t obligated to ensure MY future, just to follow where their
below-waist areas told them to.
After that, it was one personal disaster after another. When I tried to get help for
certain physical problems, I was solemnly assured that “it’s all in your head.” When
it was SOLEMNLY decreed in the Halls of Medicine that these physical problems are
both organic and treatable, I was 29.
Not only was I denied a solid moral foundation at home, and a supportive family, I
was also denied the wherewithal to go out and search out a good, responsible man
also interested in raising a family. And there were new health problems that were
not satisfactorily diagnosed for many years.
I’m either going to adopt or I’m going to enter a convent eventually.
I am sick unto death of living alone in an emotional desert.
#5 by Dennis on 07/21/2006 - 11:45 am
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Elizabeth, I’m not sure what to say. But to give up, is to abandon, and dispense with all hope. There are good men out there, but if you really feel that you have been denied, then I can only recommend that you talk to someone who can understand, and can help. Believe me, it does help. Our whole perception of our problems is often what makes the difference between us fighting to solve them, and becoming embittered that they occured. It can make the difference between feeling that something was denied and therefore can never be, and preparing to fight and steal back that which is rightfully ours, and this is often the hardest part.
I can truly empathise with what it’s like to be living in an emotional desert.
#6 by Shari on 07/21/2006 - 9:32 pm
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Elizabeth, I have thought of you before from your comments and occationally remember to pray for you. While my problems and situation is very different, I do empathize in this way. My oldest, is a daughter who turns 34 this year. She has a “college” education and has worked at the public library for these past 9yrs. While she knows that we care about her, it’s certainly not satisfying for her. She has psoriasis and I recently learned that she got a proscription for an anti-depressent. So I can see something of your heartache from her. I will continue to remember you even thought I’ve never met you.